Vasorelaxation by red blood cells and impairment in diabetes:reduced nitric oxide and oxygen delivery by glycated hemoglobin

Vascular dysfunction in diabetes is attributed to lack of bioavailable nitric oxide (NO) and is postulated as a primary cause of small vessel complications as a result of poor glycemic control. Although it has been proposed that NO is bound by red blood cells (RBCs) and can induce relaxation of blood vessels distal to its site of production in the normal circulation, the effect of RBC glycation on NO binding and relaxation of hypoxic vessels is unknown. We confirm RBC-induced vessel relaxation is inversely related to tissue oxygenation and is proportional to RBC S-nitrosohemoglobin (HbSNO) content (but not nitrosylhemoglobin content). We show more total NO bound inside highly glycated RBCs (0.0134 versus 0.0119 NO/Hb, respectively;

From Grounded Foot to Leaping Foot

This research project developed from a realisation that there was a missing link between movement work for grounding and the next demand on the student to jump. Debbie Green and Ita O'Brien began their research, ‘From grounded foot to leaping foot’ in February 2009, proposing the statement ‘grounding is a pre-requisite’ as the premise from which to start the investigation into how the use of the feet can be developed to take the actor from this deeply grounded place to jump and leap safely. The work is explored within the context of fundamental movement for the acting student with the aim of maximising the actor's physical choices within her/his expressive work. From being grounded to leaping is quite literally a big ‘leap’ for acting students to make. Following nine months of research (March–December 2009), Green and O'Brien led a series of six practical sessions with nine volunteer actors between January and March 2010 to develop the progression from the ground, through the rigour and preparation required to take the body into a jump and leap, to the strength and articulation required to land safely. The work was then presented as a Practice and Pedagogy Forum, to an invited audience within the Research Events programme at Central School of Speech & Drama on 26 October 2010. The work has subsequently been taken back into the classroom. This article is the culmination of the research into the progression of work, ‘From grounded foot to leaping foot’

Defacing the map: cartographic vandalism in the digital commons

This article addresses the emergent phenomenon of carto-vandalism, the intentional defacement of collaborative cartographic digital artefacts in the context of volunteered geographic information. Through a qualitative analysis of reported incidents in WikiMapia and OpenStreetMap, a typology of this kind of vandalism is outlined, including play, ideological, fantasy, artistic, and industrial carto-vandalism, as well as carto-spam. Two families of counter-strategies deployed in amateur mapping communities are discussed. First, the contributors organise forms of policing, based on volunteered community involvement, patrolling the maps and reporting incidents. Second, the detection of carto-vandalism can be supported by automated tools, based either on explicit rules or on machine learning